Employers Urged to be Health Care Activists

June 12, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Employers shell
out as much as $2,000 per covered worker per year for direct
and indirect costs of poor quality health care - a deficiency
for which employers are at least partly responsible, a study
finds.

The report, Reducing the Costs of Poor-Quality Health
Care through Responsible Purchasing Leadership, estimated
that the total annual bill for health care marred by
administrative inefficiencies, over and under use, and
misuse of medical services was almost $400 billion yearly.
That represents 30% of all US direct health care
outlays.

“In spite of the technological advances of the 50 years,
the quality of health care remains inadequate and highly
variable, with errors occurring far to frequently and
advances in clinical knowledge finding their way into
practice far too slowly,” researchers wrote in the
report.

Companies Somewhat Responsibility

Companies buying health-care services for their workers
are partly to blame for not insisting on higher quality
products and services from medical vendors, the report
said.

The report was commissioned by the Chicago-based Midwest
Business Group on Health (MBGH) in collaboration with the
Juran Institute Inc., a research and training organization,
and the Severyn Group Inc., a health care research and
communications firm.

“The human and financial costs of quality problems are
too high and employers are a part of the problem,” James
Mortimer, president and founder of MBGH, a coalition of
large employers, said in a statement. “It is time for
employers to wake up to the danger and implement
responsible health care purchasing policies that will help
give every worker in America affordable, high-quality
care.”

Overuse

According to the report, the problems of the US health
care system include: